I have always maintained that the current crop of Republicans in Congress rely on the American people's ignorance and apathy to get into office. If average citizens realized half of the crap that Republicans try to pull while in office, I don't think they would even be as popular as they are now - which is not saying much.
There is no better proof of that than this current flap in Arizona regarding a so-called "religious freedom" bill. The legislation in question would allow business owners to choose not to serve homosexuals based on "sincerely held religious belief".
To her credit, Governor Jan Brewer decided against sending her state back to pre-Civil Rights Act America and vetoed the bill. True religious freedom, a positive right that does not include the freedom to discriminate against others, has been protected.
My point is not to harp on the legislation in question, however. The arguments against such an execrable bill should be self-evident enough that there is no need for me to outline them. Instead, the focus of my attention is the phenomenon of similar bills proposed in Kansas, Missouri and Mississippi being tabled or deferred after the Arizona legislation was vetoed by Brewer.
I highly doubt that it's a coincidence that we're suddenly seeing such similar bills proposed by state Republican politicians. We've known for a while that the GOP has an impressive network through which talking points and the current legislative agenda is disseminated - it's called talk radio and ALEC. If Tucker Carlson says, as he did recently after Brewer's veto, that the effort to kill the anti-gay legislation is "fascism", that is the talking point that Republicans everywhere will soon be spewing on the news and in the halls of Congress.
What is striking, however, is the fact that a little "sunlight" - the American people discovering what Republicans were trying to do and working to stop it - is all it took to stop anti-gay discrimination from being codified into law.
Let that be a lesson to those who claim that their vote "doesn't count" or that staying home on election day won't have a real impact on this country.
Friday, February 28, 2014
Friday, February 21, 2014
The Value of Education
I'm finally reviving this blog after months of letting it gather dust in one of the forgotten corners of the internet. Although I have plenty of homework to do (I'm a college student), I just have so much to say about so many things that I can't help but continue to post. So look for more articles in the coming days.
An article in Time this month contains a laudatory article on a new type of high school that has opened in Chicago (I believe). Students attend this school for six years instead of four, completing the usual amount of high school and then two years of college. The idea is that they leave school with both a high school diploma and an associate degree, thus increasing their odds of finding a job.
The school itself is a joint effort between IBM and the public school system to produce more students in "STEM" (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) professions, which should bolster the economy and help low-income students at the same time.
I must admit that I have mixed feelings. As someone who has been on the wrong end of the hiring pool, I can certainly understand and appreciate the need to help graduates find work. Although computer science (my major) is a field with any number of opportunities, I quickly found that there just aren't that many jobs for a recent graduate with an associate degree - especially when you are unfortunate enough to finally graduate....in the middle of the Great Recession. The requirements for most programming jobs I've seen begin with at least a Bachelor degree level of education, if not graduate school level.
The article mentioned that a third of job openings could be filled except for the "skill gap" phenomenon - the fact that recent graduates supposedly don't have the training or skills necessary for entry-level positions. I would counter that it is becoming increasingly hard nowadays to find a job in your chosen profession - not just supposedly "soft" degrees like English literature or philosophy, but even technical degrees - without going to graduate school, which is ridiculous.
On the other hand, I'm a bit put off with the idea of pushing the "STEM" professions over everything else. I certainly understand that those in "STEM" careers are usually the innovators who bolster the economy and keep the country running. Where would we be without our engineers and mathematicians?
However, perhaps certain students don't want to be an engineer or scientist. It could be that they don't have the science or math skills necessary for such professions. It could also be that their passions lie in examining literature or creating art. Are we really going to tell such students that they have to abandon their passions to become more "marketable" or to help the economy?
I understand that finding a job and making good money is not as easy for philosophy or English majors. Some graduates may not find jobs in their field and move on to something else. Alex Trebek, for example, was a philosophy major in college. For the part thirty-odd years or more, he has been hosting various game shows - the most popular of which, of course, is Jeopardy!.
If we are serious about telling our children that college affords them the opportunity to pursue their passions, however, we should allow them to actually do that instead of pushing them into more convenient careers!
It is also true that artists and musicians possess major cultural value. Classical Greece is known just as much - or more - for its beautiful poetry, sculpture and art as it is for its feats of engineering. In my opinion, the difficulty artists and musicians often have in finding well-paying jobs says less about them - and their profession - than it does about our society.
One of the more bitter ironies of our age is the fact that higher education is pushed extremely hard: "if you want to earn more money, you've got to go to college and earn a degree!". The statistic that college graduates earn twice as much (or more) than high school graduates is continuously pounded into the brains of students like a drumbeat.
So students "do the right thing" and go to college, eventually earning a degree only to find that a four-year degree is increasingly not enough nowadays. Many of the best entry-level positions require a Master's degree or even higher before you will even be considered.
I applaud efforts like the school featured in Time that seek to fix such discrepancies, but I question whether they're pushing students into fields in which they don't have the ability or skills to survive. At the same time, I wonder whether the problem of finding well-paying work post-graduation is less an economic issue than a flaw in our educational system.
An article in Time this month contains a laudatory article on a new type of high school that has opened in Chicago (I believe). Students attend this school for six years instead of four, completing the usual amount of high school and then two years of college. The idea is that they leave school with both a high school diploma and an associate degree, thus increasing their odds of finding a job.
The school itself is a joint effort between IBM and the public school system to produce more students in "STEM" (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) professions, which should bolster the economy and help low-income students at the same time.
I must admit that I have mixed feelings. As someone who has been on the wrong end of the hiring pool, I can certainly understand and appreciate the need to help graduates find work. Although computer science (my major) is a field with any number of opportunities, I quickly found that there just aren't that many jobs for a recent graduate with an associate degree - especially when you are unfortunate enough to finally graduate....in the middle of the Great Recession. The requirements for most programming jobs I've seen begin with at least a Bachelor degree level of education, if not graduate school level.
The article mentioned that a third of job openings could be filled except for the "skill gap" phenomenon - the fact that recent graduates supposedly don't have the training or skills necessary for entry-level positions. I would counter that it is becoming increasingly hard nowadays to find a job in your chosen profession - not just supposedly "soft" degrees like English literature or philosophy, but even technical degrees - without going to graduate school, which is ridiculous.
On the other hand, I'm a bit put off with the idea of pushing the "STEM" professions over everything else. I certainly understand that those in "STEM" careers are usually the innovators who bolster the economy and keep the country running. Where would we be without our engineers and mathematicians?
However, perhaps certain students don't want to be an engineer or scientist. It could be that they don't have the science or math skills necessary for such professions. It could also be that their passions lie in examining literature or creating art. Are we really going to tell such students that they have to abandon their passions to become more "marketable" or to help the economy?
I understand that finding a job and making good money is not as easy for philosophy or English majors. Some graduates may not find jobs in their field and move on to something else. Alex Trebek, for example, was a philosophy major in college. For the part thirty-odd years or more, he has been hosting various game shows - the most popular of which, of course, is Jeopardy!.
If we are serious about telling our children that college affords them the opportunity to pursue their passions, however, we should allow them to actually do that instead of pushing them into more convenient careers!
It is also true that artists and musicians possess major cultural value. Classical Greece is known just as much - or more - for its beautiful poetry, sculpture and art as it is for its feats of engineering. In my opinion, the difficulty artists and musicians often have in finding well-paying jobs says less about them - and their profession - than it does about our society.
One of the more bitter ironies of our age is the fact that higher education is pushed extremely hard: "if you want to earn more money, you've got to go to college and earn a degree!". The statistic that college graduates earn twice as much (or more) than high school graduates is continuously pounded into the brains of students like a drumbeat.
So students "do the right thing" and go to college, eventually earning a degree only to find that a four-year degree is increasingly not enough nowadays. Many of the best entry-level positions require a Master's degree or even higher before you will even be considered.
I applaud efforts like the school featured in Time that seek to fix such discrepancies, but I question whether they're pushing students into fields in which they don't have the ability or skills to survive. At the same time, I wonder whether the problem of finding well-paying work post-graduation is less an economic issue than a flaw in our educational system.
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